Judge Laurence Silberman, an influential member on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit who was known for helping formulate Second Amendment jurisprudence, died Sunday, according to his son Robert Silberman.
Silberman, who ended his full-time service on the court in 2000, died of natural causes at the age of 86 at his home in Washington, D.C., just 10 days before his 87th birthday. From his work in the Labor Department to becoming a deputy attorney general in the final months of President Richard Nixon’s administration, Silberman was also a mentor to many prominent figures including Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett.
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The judge, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, is often cited for a 2007 appeals court opinion holding that a Washington ordinance regulating gun ownership was unconstitutional. Under the ordinance, handguns were essentially banned in the district and required that long rifles be disassembled or disabled even if they are kept inside a home.
In his court writings, Silberman sought to underscore the historical context for the right to bear arms as a protected individual right, not as a privilege solely connected to service in militias.
And in the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Heller v. District of Columbia ruling in 2008 to strike down the ordinance, the majority of justices at the time relied on Silberman’s own reasoning, being that the D.C. Circuit Silberman belonged to is considered the second-most powerful court in the nation.
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In addition to championing Second Amendment rights, Silberman also fought against suppression of the First Amendment, an idea that he touched on in one of his last public speaking events at Dartmouth College last month.
“Those seeking to suppress free speech sometimes think that provocative, even extreme and obnoxious, political speech is dangerously divisive. It should be suppressed. I think that is profoundly wrong. I think it is the very opposite. Toleration of all versions of political speech is the crucial unifying factor in our country,” Silberman said at Dartmouth’s Constitution Day talk.
